From the BBC:
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair is to donate the profits from his memoirs to a sports centre for injured soldiers.
A spokesman said Mr Blair would hand over the reported £4m advance payment plus all royalties to honour "their courage and sacrifice".
I can't respond to this; I'm too weary of the whole thing. Mummylonglegs has no such problem, although if you don't like sweary things you should read it with your eyes shut. One apposite sentence:
There is a reason why a decorated soldier would not shake your hand, Blair, and that is because not matter how many time you wash them, and no matter how many millions of pounds pass through them they are still covered in blood.
Got it in one.
It says a lot about Mr Blair (and perhaps something about me) that I didn't for one instant imagine this was anything other than an expensive but slimy PR stunt.
ReplyDeleteEven thinking about it now, I couldn't possibly accept that this is a genuine gesture. Must have enough houses and cash now that he feels he can afford to bribe people (all for charidee) to read his side of the story. And without turning a single page of said volume, I can imagine what self-serving, delusional, Messianic claptrap it will be.
There's your legacy, Blair. You throw millions of pounds away in a failed attempt to redeem your reputation, and people still have nothing but contempt and disbelief for you. Now FOAD.
And the quote above, though truly apposite, might even be improved by changing "a decorated soldier" to "any half-decent human being".
The Times reports that Mr Blair was planning to give the money to a war-related cause 'before he put pen to paper'.
ReplyDeleteNope, it's just an attempt to get the British People back onside. And to forestall the substantial demonstrations that are planned for all of his book-launch events. After all, how could anyone object to a book whose proceeds are going to Our Brave Boys?
The man's behaviour is transparently self-serving. A few years of Brown almost convinced me that Blair wasn't all that bad. Oh yes he was. And is.
The David Kelly thing is getting interesting, too.